


Itami Wistalia

by raediation



Category: Akagami no Shirayukihime, Snow White with the Red Hair
Genre: #itami means pain..., Fan theory, Pre-Canon, in which Ryuu is a product of Mad King Kain and one of his mistresses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27228043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raediation/pseuds/raediation
Summary: Ryuu was too young to remember now his mother’s death, or the name she left him with. And too young to remember the man who came to visit him at the orphanage.
Kudos: 10





	Itami Wistalia

Ryuu was too young to remember now his mother’s death, or the name she left him with. And too young to remember the young man who came to visit him at the orphanage.

The young man swept up the steps to the gates of the orphanage, he wasn’t one of the usual types to step onto its grounds, though his confidence in his every nonchalant step gave credence to his presence.

His long, flaxen hair was in a loose braid that laid over his shoulder. His threadbare clothes, that didn’t fit his tall, lean frame, were in shades of brown. If anyone saw him enter the home they may have thought him only a tutor of some sort, paid by one of the orphanage’s patrons to give the children extra lessons. However, the more discerning would see that he carried no books or papers and that his oversized cloak did its best to conceal a sword on his side, though the tip of the sheath still occasionally poked out from under its hem.

The man strode across the yard where children played in scattered groups. A few young boys saw him and ran around him as they showered him with their questions. His approach to the door never wavered. The only acknowledgment he gave them being the slightly amused quirk of his eyebrow. He went so unnoticed on the street, the sudden swarming of attention and demands for answers was an astute illustration of his daily life. Just as the quaintness of their attention began to wear away a middle aged woman stepped out of the house with a baby on her hip.

“Leave the poor man alone!” She shouted. The man looked as though he were about to speak but the children shifted their questions and guesses about his visit to her. She waved her hand to shoo them off. “How can I know when you won’t let him speak! Go on, go play!” The children griped at first but quickly ran off again. Another woman, younger, though not by much appeared from inside and the first woman passed the baby to her. “Keep an eye out here,” she told the woman who nodded and walked out into the yard. Finally, brushing her hands together, she turned to the man. “I’m Mama Kana, what can I help you with, young man?”

The man smiled with just his eyes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Ms. Kana,” he said as he walked across the last bit of yard and up the stoop to join her. “I’m Zakura.” He bowed slightly and held out a hand to her.

She looked him up and down and cautiously took his hand to shake. “I’m not sure what you’re selling, but I can almost guarantee you that we’re not buying.”

He smiled again with only his eyes. “I’m here on behalf of my master, actually.” He swept his cloak away from his hip to reveal, only to her, the sword he had sheathed there. The sword itself was a sign of aristocracy but more importantly was the crest on the hilt. Both of Kana’s eyebrows raised in recognition of it.

Still wary, Kana asked quietly, “May I ask what business your master has with us?”

“The royal family funds this home. His highness wants to ensure its conditions are honorable.” He glanced around the yard where the children played in the shade of trees, a couple wooden swings rustled the branches as the children all took turns pushing each other. Balls and toys littered the yard as one was picked up, tossed, then discarded, and another picked up in an endless cycle. They all looked fed, happy, and cared for, though none of them matched the description of the one he was looking for.

“I could give you a tour, if you’d like. It’s the younger children’s play time right now and they can be a bit rowdy, as you can see.” Almost on cue, shrill, happy screams rang out as a chasing game of some sort broke out. “And the older children are away at school now.”

“Are there only two of you working?” he asked with light sarcasm.

Kana laughed, “oh no, we always have at least ten woman on each shift.” She waved him to follow her inside the home. Inside, they came to the doorway of a large bedroom turned nursery. “Half of them are with the babies and the children with extra needs.” He saw the woman feeding babies and children with enlarged heads and crooked limbs. He suspected the one he was looking for wouldn’t be here, but a quick glance confirmed it. Without lingering too long he walked on and Kana led him to the kitchen in the back of the house. “Everyone else is helping prepare lunch.” He saw women hurrying about the kitchen cooking and filling dozens of small bowls. There were windows along the back wall that showed into the back yard where a few stray children played outside the fences of the kitchen’s garden.

There, he thought. A tuft of dark hair, pale skin, and blue eyes peeked out from around the bushes within the garden itself. Not noticing his attention was elsewhere, Kana glanced at her pocket watch. “Which is in ten minutes or so. Would you like to see the bedrooms upstairs?”

He turned from the window. “You all seem very busy right now.” He said apologetically, “I don’t want to keep you from your duties. I’ll just observe for a little while. Dont worry about me.” He turned the corners of his eyes in the same trained smile.

With the crest he carried, this man spoke with the voice of his master, whom she wouldn’t be able to refuse. She watched him walk through the back door of the kitchen and into the garden where he kneeled. She too saw the tuft of black brown hair then and wondered for the first time if the ridiculous claim made in that letter three years ago had any validity after all.

In the cold, damp ground the small boy sat on his knees over the arrangement of flowers, stones, and seeds he’d collected. He’d pick up one flower bud and placed it just so before scooting a white pebble over a little to balance his pattern. Izana stood over the boy for a moment, watching. He saw a book opened on a sweater beside him and knelt down closer. His shoes and knee pressed into the watered dirt that was like thick mud. Good thing he was wearing brown, he thought. He saw that the book had pictures of flowers and herbs, a couple of which were in the boy’s collection. Though the connections that made up his patterns were a mystery to everyone, he assumed, but the boy. It took awhile for the boy to acknowledge him, drawing his hands back from his pattern making and only glancing for a moment at Izana before looking away. A flash of blue.

“What’s your name?” Izana asked.

He didn’t answer. The boy was very young, though, most children his age spoke.

“Do you speak?” he asked.

The boy looked off to the children in the far corners of the yard then back at Izana and shrugged.

Izana’s eyes narrowed, not unkindly. “So, you just won’t speak to me, then?”

Returning his attention to his pattern, the boy shrugged again.

“We named him Ryuu,” Kana said from behind.

Izana wasn’t startled. He hadn’t expected the self proclaimed “mama” to leave him to wander her den completely unsupervised. He just glanced back at her from over his shoulder as she continued. “He came to us when he was a little over a year old.” She smiled proudly. “He’s very bright, but honestly, when he starts school next year I’m worried he’ll either be bored or bullied.”

Izana looked back at the boy, Ryuu, who had turned to the side in order to read the dense text of his book. Izana nodded.

He stood and brushed off his knee though a dark spot would remain until it dried. He took a few steps back and leaned against the garden fence where Kana leaned over the gate. The two watched Ryuu look from his book to the flowers he carefully examined.

“He came with a letter from his mother,” Kana said quietly, “I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I have a sinking feeling that’s why your master sent you.”

“Is she alive?”

“His mother?” Kana shrugged, “Not according to her letter. Said she was dying soon but wanted Itami taken care of... Itami.” She wrinkled her nose at the name. “That’s what she named him, but we changed it. Ryuu fits him much better.

“Anyway, I can’t know if she actually was dying or not, nor could I know if the... if the claim she made was real.”

She had hesitated to mention whom the letter claimed the father to be. Given that a man sent by the royal family was here they must have already had their suspicions. “The letter warned that people may come to harm him.” She watched him carefully. He didn’t look cruel but if he had been ordered to do anything against one of their children she knew that she and all the women in the home would fall by his sword before he laid a hand on any of them. Royal crests be damned.

He didn’t take his eyes off Ryuu and just frowned slightly. “We’re hopeful no one else knows about him,” he finally said, “Not to mention that there is no evidence towards these claims.” Ryuu glanced from the corner of his eye, they spoke too quietly for him to hear, he was simply wondering if they had left yet. But it gave Izana a chance to see those blue eyes of his again. It was a common trait in Clarines, but Izana could still see the uncanny resemblance. He’d long lost that wide eyed innocence to his own eyes, but they weren’t too dissimilar to Zen’s. He looked away first this time.

“Any loose ends,” he said, quiet and stern, “will be taken care of by the time I leave today.”

Kana straightened, her hands tightened into fists.

Izana saw her furrowed brow and explained in a low voice. “I want to see any documents you have on him. If you still have that letter, I will see it burned. It’s for his safety. A rumored, illegitimate third born son of a king is no threat on his own, but my master and I’m sure, yourself, don’t want to see him used like a pawn in anyone else’s game.”

Izana and Kana stared at each other for a long moment before Kana nodded slowly. She relaxed her shoulders only slightly and returned to watching Ryuu. “Is that all you came to do then?” she asked dully.

“It was,” he said, “I could leave after that and not come back... if that’s what was best for the boy.” He paused to think for a moment then continued, “But after what I’ve seen today, my master will want to keep a closer eye on him.” Kana turned back to Izana and watched him carefully as he spoke. “He’s clever and you’re right that he won’t do well in school. Whenever he’s ready, he’s welcome to come to the palace and study with a private tutor instead. He’ll have access to the libraries and,” he gave a meaningful look back to Ryuu, “the gardens.”

Kana blinked with surprise, trying to make sense of what was just given. Unprepared for this turn in the conversation she stammered, “He would... love that... You’re getting my hopes up. Do you truly have the authority to grant this? Won’t you have to ask your master?”

His hand rested on the sheath of his sword with a clink. “I speak with his voice,” he said.

They pulled Ryuu’s file. It was short, but the letter was inside, the envelope still crisp. Izana read it before he dropped it into the fire and Kana redacted any information about his mother and potential father from his records.

Kana opened the front door of the house for Izana. “Thank you again, Zakura, for what you’re doing for him.”

“I’m destroying all the connections the boy has to any of his blood relatives. You do not need to thank me for doing one small right by him.”

Kana shook her head, “It won’t be a small thing to him.” She smiled warmly. “Besides, I think too much weight is put on blood relations and not enough on the choices people make to stay together.”

“Unfortunately,” Izana said with his smile, all eyes, “my position requires me to disagree with you,”

She chuckled. “I suppose you would be out of a job if people stopped supporting bloodlines,” Kana said, not realizing how squarely she nailed it on the head. Speaking against the monarchy usually was frowned upon but from a woman whose whole job was to put together happy families who weren’t connected by blood, it didn’t ring quite as treasonous.

“But I agree,” said Izana,”that, in his case, he’ll be made better by never knowing his parentage.”

“He’ll find a new family, or they’ll find him,” Kana said. “I’ve seen it a hundred times and I hope to see it a hundred more.”

“I hope you do.” Izana bowed his head to her and walked back across the yard, empty now, to the gate where a black haired man with a scar across the bridge of his nose waited.

Izana slipped through the gates. “Come on, Zakura,” he said and continued past the man without slowing. Zakura had to hurry to keep up. “Sneaking out again, your highness?” he said with humor in his voice, “Pressure of running a country getting to you? Planning to put yourself up for adoption?” He laughed at his own joke.

“Sort of the opposite actually. I used your name. Hope you don’t mind”

“You what?” Zakura looked over his shoulder to make sure there wasn’t some orphan following behind him. It was clear.

Izana smirked. “Don’t worry, there is a boy, but he’s going to stay at the home. I want you to arrange a tutor for him at the palace. Send a letter back to them once you have.”

“Are you taking a ward?” Zakura asked. Izana wasn't even a grown man yet.

“I'm not. No,” Izana said, “but if things go well, I’m sure you can find someone in Wistal who’d be willing to take that role.”

Zakura shook his head. “Your younger brother not already causing you enough grief?”

Izana’s face was unreadable stone. “You don’t know the half of it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine Ryuu meeting Garrack in the gardens not long after beginning his tutoring. She takes him under her wing and makes the arrangements for him to come under her care at the palace


End file.
